An advisory panel to the National Development and Reform Commission has in principle endorsed China Petrochemical Corp's plan to build a 200,000 barrel-per-day refinery in northern Hebei province, a Chinese newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The endorsement is a step closer to securing approval for the project from China's powerful planning agency. The refinery will give the largest refiner in Asia more leeway to serve booming demand in the Beijing-Tianjin region and potentially aid its expansion in northeast China, a traditional stronghold of rival China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC).

The Caofeidian refinery, expected to cost 21.4 billion yuan ($3.40 billion), would be 600 metres away from China Petrochemical Corp's new commcercial oil reserve base that was put into use on Feb. 1, the China Chemical Industry News said.

The refinery would be seven kilometres away from a crude oil port in the Bohai Bay that is able to dock very large crude oil carriers, the report said.

The report did not provide a time frame for when the refinery would be ready for use.

China Petrochemical Corp, known as Sinopec Group, has 32 new crude oil tanks in Caofeidian that can store a total of some 20 million barrels, in addition to its existing five million barrels of storage.

China Petrochemical Corp runs most of its refining assets via listed China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec Corp).